BY NANCY COLE
PHILADELPHIA - Media disclosure in early April of a 10- year-old training tape for city prosecutors has lifted a corner on the racist and anti-working-class nature of this country's judicial system. Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham - running for reelection and under fire for racist comments and practices - released a videotape that her Republican opponent Jack McMahon made while a homicide prosecutor a decade ago.

In the tape McMahon advises rookie prosecutors how to proceed during jury selection. The law states the purpose is to get a competent, fair and impartial jury, he notes. "Well, that's ridiculous," he declares on tape. "You're not trying to get that... The only way you're going to do your best is to get jurors that are unfair, and more likely to convict than anybody else in that room."

In pursuit of that end, McMahon's counsel includes the following:

"The Blacks from the low-income areas are less likely to convict," he says. "... And as a result, you don't want those people on your jury." He later recommends avoiding all- white juries, but suggests opting for a few older Black men, preferably from the South.

"[Y]oung Black women are very bad," he pronounces. "There's an antagonism. I guess maybe because they're downtrodden in two respects. They are women, and they're Black."

Avoid smart people, he says. "Because smart people will analyze the hell out of your case... They take those words `reasonable doubt' and they actually try to think about them. You don't want those people. You don't want people who are going to think it out."

He also cautions against social workers ("intelligence, sensitivity, all this stuff") and teachers ("bad, especially young teachers").

McMahon even suggests to look at the books jurors bring to court. "If they're reading Karl Marx, you know you don't want this person."

McMahon won jury convictions in 36 murder cases while he was assistant district attorney. In his own defense after the tape was revealed, McMahon declared, "Every lawyer in the world uses these techniques." And in fact, three Common Pleas Court judges told the Philadelphia Inquirer, on the condition of anonymity, that the techniques described in the videotape are routinely employed by the District Attorney's office, as well as by defense attorneys.

According to John Ackerman, a former dean of the National College of Criminal Defense, "If you looked at the training tapes of virtually every prosecutor's office in America, you'd find roughly the same type of thing."

Reaction to the tape's disclosure was swift from politicians here - not to condemn McMahon for his trampling of the U.S. Constitution and its guarantee to a public trial by an impartial jury, but to take Abraham to task for her crude campaigning.

Part of McMahon's counterattack charged Abraham with "victimizing African American defendants" in her handling of the 39th Police District scandal. In that public revelation that began two years ago, eight police officers pleaded guilty to corruption charges, including framing, robbing, and beating drug suspects and perjuring themselves in court. So far, 293 criminal cases have been thrown out by judges because those charged were arrested by one or more of the eight cops.

A couple of years ago the New York Times Magazine ran a major article on Abraham called, "The Deadliest D.A.," subtitled, "the Capital of Capital Punishment." It noted that unlike other cities in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia prosecutors file a notice to seek the death penalty in virtually every homicide case where there are "aggravating circumstances." What this means in practice is that prosecutors get a "death qualified" jury -every juror must say they are willing to impose the death penalty. Attorneys in capital cases also get 20 peremptory challenges - striking potential jurors for no stated reason - instead of the usual seven.

The article quoted former homicide prosecutor Michael McGovern saying, "Minorities tend to say much more often that they are opposed to the death penalty. Prosecutors are aware of that. A lot of Latinos and Blacks will be lost on these questions."

Nancy Cole is a member of the International Association of Machinists.  
 
 
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